'Forbidden' Fruit

He's at it again, that Gerard Alessandrini, harassing the neighbors. The creator, writer and co-director of the satirical musical revue "Forbidden Broadway" recently unveiled a new edition, "Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging!" at the Davenport Theatre, a stone's throw from where "Pippin" and "Once" are playing. And yes, Mr. Alessandrini is throwing stones.

ENLARGE

Ken Fallin

No one is safe from his dead-on aim, not the lackluster "Bullets Over Broadway" or the lacks lust "Bridges of Madison County." "You and I have just one sex scene," sing the "Forbidden Broadway" cast members standing in for Kelli O'Hara and Steven Pasquale during a merciless parody of the "Bridges" power ballad "One Second and a Million Miles."

Also taking their lumps are Idina Menzel (whose vocal stylings, as mocked here, suggest she is trying to make contact with Mars), Michelle Williams, Liza Minnelli, Mandy Patinkin and Sylvester Stallone—to say nothing of the folks responsible for the myriad revivals on the Great White Way. "Go smoke some crack / 'cause guess what just came back? / Ooh, la, la, la, 'Les Miserables,'" one of "FB"'s quartet of performers warbles to the tune of Cole Porter's "C'est Magnifique."

"It's all done with love," said the bearded, stocky and inventive Mr. Alessandrini, 60, sitting in the darkened Davenport Theatre after a Wednesday matinee. "I love Broadway musicals."

Really, where would he be without them. For the past 32 years, they've supplied Mr. Alessandrini, a former actor, with fodder for nearly a dozen editions of "Forbidden Broadway," among them "Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back"; "Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey"; "Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit"; and "Forbidden Broadway Goes to Rehab." There have also been productions specially tailored for London, Los Angeles, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, as well as a touring company that offers something akin to Forbidden Broadway's greatest hits.

Mr. Alessandrini typically launches a new version of "FB" in September (before the beginning of the Broadway season) or in January (when, typically, there's a lull). "But I thought, 'Wouldn't it be fun this year to open right at Tony Awards time and see if by putting ourselves in the thick of it we'd get a fresher show?' And I think it worked," said Mr. Alessandrini, who himself won a special Tony in 2006.

As always, there's the challenge of playing both to dedicated, impassioned theatergoers and to tourists who see one show a year. "'Forbidden Broadway' has to be self-explanatory enough that if you haven't seen the musical we're spoofing you'll still get it," he said. "And it has to be insider enough that avid theatergoers feel they're getting some new information."

Not every musical is ripe for parody. "Bad news for us is 'The Producers,'" Mr. Alessandrini said. "How do you spoof something that's already a spoof? But nothing is better than a mediocre show that keeps on running, like 'Kinky Boots.' It has its audience, but it's not 'My Fair Lady,' let's just say."

While new iterations of "Forbidden Broadway" invariably feature a certain amount of material from previous productions, the show is frequently retooled and refreshed to reflect the changes in the Broadway lineup or in the fortunes of a particular musical. Currently, "FB Comes Out Swinging!" doesn't include a spoof of "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder," which was nominated for 10 Tonys. "I really liked that show," Mr. Alessandrini said. "But when it opened it wasn't a big box-office success, so I thought 'let's wait until people get to know it a little bit better.'"

And once it's gone from the scene, it's often gone from "Forbidden Broadway." Consider "The Bridges of Madison County," which ended a brief run in mid-May. Its parody is still in the show and "plays very well," Mr. Alessandrini said. "But I know from experience that once something closes the laughs stop, because people aren't thinking about it anymore. I may replace it with 'Gentleman's Guide' if that wins the Tony."

Mr. Alessandrini grew up in Needham, Mass., where from an early age he listened to operas, often in German, gradually developing a taste for operettas. When he first heard "My Fair Lady" it was a revelation. Frederick Loewe, the legendary show's composer, "came from the Viennese tradition, and it was very Old World glamorous," recalled Mr. Alessandrini, who was equally enchanted by Alan Jay Lerner's lyrics. They were inspired; they were in English. "That's how I got interested in musical theater."

Mr. Alessandrini created "Forbidden Broadway" in 1982 as a vehicle for himself and some friends at the now-defunct Palsson's Supper Club on the Upper West Side. "I had a beautiful baritone voice, if you don't mind my saying so. But who wanted to hear me sing 'On the Street Where You Live'?" Far better to write "Almost like 1948," a plaint about producers' reliance on the tried and true, sung to the tune of "Almost Like Being in Love" from "Brigadoon."

Half a dozen years ago, Mr. Alessandrini considered ringing down the curtain on his baby. With fewer and fewer musicals opening, it was becoming increasingly difficult to come up with new and worthy material. "Things just didn't warrant spoofing," he said. But in 2012, with an uptick in the number of productions chugging into town, he had a change of heart; "Forbidden Broadway: Alive and Kicking" was the result.

"To close for a while was healthy for the show. Thankfully, 12 musicals opened this season, which is more how it was years ago," said Mr. Alessandrini, who's putting the finishing touches on a new version of "Forbidden Broadway Goes to London." But the night before he leaves for England, he'll bow to the dictates of tradition and tune into the Tony Awards broadcast. "I've seen most of the shows and I've already made my predictions," he said. "So I'll just be getting a bunch of friends together to watch—and laugh."

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